I started out last week on the mahogany buffet adjusting and installing the door stops. Using a block plane, I shaved off the front face of the stop so that the door would close to the proper position. I then epoxied a rare earth magnet into the hole and covered it with a leather pad. This matches up with the magnets I set into the doors.

Then, it was back to the drawers, wrapping up the drawer bottoms by carefully fitting the tongues on the edges into the slots in the drawer sides and fronts. I also prepared a hole and screw for fastening the bottoms to the backs of the drawer boxes. For each drawer, I also planed a gap in the front edge to allow for movement of the bottom with the seasons in the deeper groove of the drawer front.

This was followed by four light coats of shellac and two coats of beeswax polish.

I needed to cut mortises for the drawer pulls. Here's the set-up that I used.

I'll be using floating tenons to attach the pulls to the drawer fronts.

The drawers had previously been fitted to the openings, but now needed some additional attention paid to the surfaces, so I gave the plane iron a good honing and made just a few very light passes on the outside of the drawer sides and backs.

More shellac and wax on the outside of the drawer boxes.

I then glued small leather pads to the ends of the drawer slide grooves.

And trimmed them off with a plane iron.

A little overkill on my coverage of the drawer stop pad, but it's a nice detail that gives the drawer a softer sound when closing.

The drawer fronts received an oil finish.

While the oil cured on the drawer fronts, it was time to prepare for moving the piece up one level, up and out of the basement. I mounted two carrying handles to the frame I've been using all along for the glue-ups of the cabinet. The long handle on the left end is for the lead person to carry it up the stair without needing to bend over.

The carrier frame worked out well and made the trip up to the living room very, very easy for two people. As soon as we got the cabinet to the living room, we removed it from the carrier and flipped it upside-down to mount the base to the bottom of the cabinet.

After driving the sixteen screws through the brass brackets, it was ready to be placed on its feet for the first time.

The piece will be completed and delivered later this week. I hope to have a few final pictures to share with you in my next post.